Adventure on Bicycle

Bicycle Rally***

Leh To Shrinagar.

Twenty youngsters (forty-plus-Rocking) from Pune have recently successfully completed a challenging bicycle Tour. This is about the tough tour testing them physically & mentally in the adverse condition’s.
Name of the participants :
Wing commander Yashwant Marathe(78), Dhananjay Dixit,
Dr. Shirish Patwardhan, Jugal Rathi (60),
Dr. Narendra Patwardhan, Bhushan Aapte,
Dr. Arvind Chaphekar, Nandkishor Bhatevara,
Dr. Jayant Joshi, Pradip Bhvalkar,
Prof. Vasanti Joshi, Suresh Mehandale(68),
Dr. Dilip Dhamankar, Ulhas Joshi,
Dr. Dilip Sarada, Nishad Jogdand,
Ravindra Joshi, Ashwin Deshpande,
Atul Gopal & Shekhar Arthekar.

Road Track & Schedule:-
First day:- Leh(Ht. from sea level 11480 ft.)-south coloum-khardungla pass (18350 ft.) – Leh - 39km.
Second day: - Leh – lamayaru – nimu – Saspol – Narula –Ultoxpo – khalste – Layamaru – 114km.
Third day:- Layamaru – Photula pass –Hasincoat – Bodhkaru – 43km.
Fourth day:- Bodhkaru – Nakila pass – Wark mulbek – Shergol – Pashkum – Kargil – (10594 ft.) 59km.
Fifth day:- Kargil – Khabru – Thasgan – Dras – Matiyan – 60km.
Sixth day:- Matiyan – Sonmarg – Koolan – Goond – Kangan – Vasan – Gandarbal – Nagbal – Shree Nagar. 84 km.
To make fit & for practice purpose some of the participants used the track of Sinhgad Fourt near Pune. Some of them visited (on 14000.ft.) Amarnath (walking) to get adjusted to the weather conditions.
After some period all the participants reached to Leh. Here they were going to live for two / four days to get adjusted with weather conditions. For this tour, the organizers(p.o.g.s.) arranged two supporting vehicles, for helping the tourist cyclist in between their track, if any problem arises. They had to drink more water due to conditions here.
On 31st Aug 2007 they got bicycles for practice. They were going to travel from Leh to Shrinagar with rented bicycle. The rent of bicycle was Rs.300/- Per day.

On the first day of tour they had a good road 18 km towards Southpullu up to Khardungal, the distance is 39 km in which the height from sea level goes up to 7000 ft. Here on slope the bicycle’s speed per hr. was 5 to 6 km. (very low). While cycling they had to stop for eating or drinking water. From South pullu to Khardungala(18380 ft.) they had to go 3000 ft. high, within 14 km travelling. In this weather oxygen % was low, it was very difficult to travel through, then started the bad road conditions.
While cycling they get hungry, thirsty some time they had to stop for drinking water & eating. Some of them had less practice of cycling & due to low oxyzan the overall speed of traveling was less at last they reached to Khardungala. This is the highest Motor road in the world. Here the team reached on bicycle. Its really great feeling in the mind of participants. Their dream to be on highest Motor road came true. They were very happy there.
They reached to Aalchi their first day's destination.
Leh to Shrinagar is not a down track only there are many ups & down in between Noorula (6,000 ft.) to Photula (13,479 ft.), from their to Bodhkaru (10,000 ft.) to Nakilapass (12,198 ft.) to Zozila smarak (10,200 ft) to Zoziala (11,575 ft) like that ups & downs are there in the road
On the second day in the morning at 8.00 a.m. they left for Lamayaru, on the way, it was very difficult to be on bicycle due to sloppy road
On the next day Kargil to Dras was the route 70 - 80 km they had to travel .Here the road was not much sloppy & the support vehicle was very helpful in meeting the requirements of water & food .Support vehicle is must in such a kind of adventures trip.
Just before Dras there is a statue of warriors & martyrs who were in operation Vijay of Kargil War. Here they have written name of those soldiers who died in the war & short story about war. At this point the participants were sentimental for some time. They spend some time over here in the memories of SHAHID JAWAN.
Now the task was from Dras to Sonmarg, in between there was a Zozila Khind (11,500 ft.). In the beginning the road was good but afterwards the bad road started. After some time the good road came & it was up to Sonmarg.
After Sonmarg to Shrinagar 84 km. The road was in good condition & the mood of participants was good they completed this distance within four hours.
Thus the trip came to a successful end. Age is no barrier, you can do adventure at any age provided that you are physically & mentally fit for the task.
(Thanks to Dr.Arvind Chaphekar for his guidance in writing the above blog)